


Close Your Eyes

by Teej



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:58:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6364045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teej/pseuds/Teej
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old now & blind, Gaius describes colours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a 2015 Weekly Writers Challenge: Describing colours without using sight.

****

## 

Close Your Eyes

****

I'm old now. Very old. By rights I should have departed this earth many years ago. Strange though, the life of a physician. It's rare in our profession to contract whatever illness is plaguing a patient. No pun intended. One thing I cannot escape though is the effects of aging. My sight has diminished over the past few years, I've come to accept it and now I am fully blind. People still come to me though, to consult, but the physical aspects of my chosen profession are done by others now. No need to express sorrow, I am comfortable in my retirement. I get the occasional questions though, mostly from the children, that stops me and makes me ponder. Questions like what is colour when you can't see it?

Bear with an old man's ramblings and I will 'show' you. First, close your eyes.

Hear that sound? Or rather the lack of it? That still hush in the forest, when the birds aren't singing? There is no wind, there is only calm, and peace and quietness? Occasionally you hear water, dripping randomly, some smaller drops, some larger, some slow, some fast. How about the gurgling in a little stream? Imagine that, if you will. 

Now, what happens if you were to accidentally bite the inside of your mouth? Or your lip? Or if you were to lose a tooth, say? You would bleed. The taste of that blood is the taste of iron, it's metallic, of the earth, an odd salty, tangy taste, one you are not used to. Can you taste it? 

Let me go on, but you must keep your eyes closed. 

What does it smell like when the earth and the forest has been dry for some time and it begins to rain? It is refreshing, you breathe it in deep. It is earthy, with the smell of good, healthy soil, the forest with its trees; cedars, pines, firs, junipers. Dry stone and pavement after weeks or months with no water suddenly releases an aroma that you can't help but inhale feeling it wash through you, lifting you up, reviving your spirits. It is a smell of life renewed, and you don't want it to go away.

You are hearing it, you can taste it, you can smell it, but what does it feel like?

It's a fine dampness, kissing your cheeks, can you feel it cling to your face, to your hands? Or it can be more than that, dampening your clothes, sometimes even causing a chill from the coldness of it as it settles all around you like a shroud. Here, I have a coin in my hand. I want you to feel the coin. Feel the face of it, it's surprising soft though firm, cool, and faintly slippery like it has a fine oily surface. Can you feel that with your fingertips?

The coin is silver, the fine dampness, and the still quiet in the forest is mist, or fog. The drips and the smell of dust after rain is water, the taste is metallic.

My eyes may have diminished now by reason of age, but I can still clearly see. I bet you never thought the colour grey could be quite so interesting!

Describe another colour?

Orange? 

Oh dear...

Let me think on that one.


	2. Close Your Eyes II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaius answers the question from 'Close Your Eyes'.

****

## 

Close Your Eye's II

****

Well all right, let's do this colour orange then. Bring me that sack on the table there and let me pass out to you some oranges from Camelot's orangeries.

Everyone has one in their hands right? Okay, so first we will describe it by touch. It's round isn't it? Like the sun, which can sometimes be orange, when one thinks about it. It's firm, and cool to the touch and you can feel that the surface is pitted with many smaller circles. It's somewhat smooth and also feels a little bit oily. That's from the citrus oil it produces. Feel that with your fingertips? Now feel around the orange until you find what might seem like a button, that's where the flower of the orange fell off. That is where you can pry the orange peel loose from the flesh of the orange that you can eat. Now as you peel the orange you can feel that it is divided into several sections, or segments, but don't break those open just yet. 

Now then how about that smell? That's really very easy when it comes to the colour orange. You can smell sunshine, and tangy sweetness, just from the oil alone, but when you begin to peel that orange it releases even more citrus oil and sometimes that sweet, delicious juice. There's also a underlying aroma of flowers with their heady scents mingled with citrus. Makes one want to just breathe that fragrance in, doesn't it?

Taste is really very easy here. Perhaps the easiest of the senses involved as it's a citrus fruit just waiting to be consumed. It's a given that it's sweet, juicy, tangy and sometimes quite mouth puckeringly tart, all sunlight, and flowers, and warmth from days of growing ripe in the orangeries. What can be more wonderful than a juicy, sweet orange on summer day? The taste of orange!

So we've felt orange, smelled orange, tasted orange... I've left a sense out? What does orange sound like?

Well, all of you, peel a segment loose and bite into it.

Yes, aha, that's it! Hear those squirts of juice? Hear all that giggling and peals of laughter? 

That is the sound of orange.

You see, it's not so hard to describe after all now is it?


End file.
